Hi, and welcome to UGC for b two b. I'm Nicole, and this is Alice, and we're digital media strategists here at Market Scale. We get to work with some of the best companies in b two b. And today, we're gonna be talking about user generated content, also known as UGC. Alice, do you wanna let us know what is user generated content, and what role does authenticity play in this form of creator content? Yeah. Definitely. So in the market scale community, we frequently refer to UGC, user generated content, as CGC or community generated content because we feel like it's a more precise way to describe the idea. Basically, it's media like videos, photos, reviews, social posts created by people within the brand's community, rather than the brand itself. So this could include their clients, their partners, or even the experts behind the scenes who are helping to refine and elevate their brand to its highest potential. So it's not really about the company saying, hey. Look how great we are. It's more about real members of the community sharing their genuine experiences with the brand's product or service. It makes it so incredibly powerful because it comes from the voices of people who trust and connect with the brand and really create a sense of relatability and authenticity. I was actually on a call with a client a couple of months ago now, and we were relating this concept back to when you were a teenager and your mom gave you advice. And no matter how good that advice was, you'd roll your eyes and just go, mom. No. Ugh. But if your cool younger aunt gave you the exact same advice, it was suddenly irrefutable. It was, you know, gospel truth. Why? Because from, you know, your perspective as a teenager, it was coming from someone you could relate to or connect with or is more tapped in to your age group or your interests. And that's exactly what CGC is all about and why influencers are so successful. Because instead of a polished marketing team or a high budget ad campaign pitching a product or service, it's basically just a brand's community that can show how it fits into their real lives. They're basically like that cool amp. They're gonna be relatable, honest, and their content is going to feel more genuine even with the flaws. So that's what people want, not an idealized sales pitch, but real deal, pros and cons included. And that connection is what is going to ultimately build trust, engagement, and increase sales. Absolutely. And people trust people. Right? When we we've seen this in the b to c world, we've seen this in entertainment. They have really championed this idea of u c UGC. And b to b is usually a little bit behind those companies with marketing, but you're seeing b two b companies roll it in. But we can learn a lot from those other companies. If you take a look at GoPro, they have rolled out an amazing UGC campaign where they ask all their users to submit some of the most iconic, jaw dropping extreme general adrenaline pumping content. This reminds me of my brother. He is in a sport called ice cross. It's it's insane. They have hockey gear on. It attracts a lot of ex hockey players. They go down these crazy ice luge track jumps and at record speed. And, prior to the pandemic, Red Bull actually owned them and was championing them. And due to, I don't know, some things, they, had to drop them. And so the racers were left on their own devices to champion the sport, build community, but they have done such an amazing job, zero marketing, and all they do is put on these GoPros, capture this in same footage. Every time I watch it, I I feel like my brother's gonna die what he's doing. But, and then they take out their phones and they capture the pre race, you know, setting up the track, what they're doing to get ready for the race, you know, champagne bottles spraying after someone wins a race. There there are so many different characters, colorful characters within the races. And, you know, as b two b companies, you have so many different colorful characters within your organization. Right? How can you encourage them to get on the mic, share what they know, and bring their personality, to the camera, to the screen because like you said, people trust people. And, you know, these racers all have different personalities. One of them in particular is from, he's Swiss and, you know, the Swiss love their cheese. The guy travels with a raclette cheese melting machine in his bag. And after the races, he takes it out and he melts cheese. He makes these cheese sandwiches with all the racers. It is ridiculous. But, you know, it's it's gold because it shows the sport. It shows the different personalities in the sport, and people just eat it up. It's so fun. No. And I think brands are starting to realize too that people will not connect with a brand the way they can connect with a person, a personality. And, we saw this with the Olympics. Speaking of sports, Eleonah Mejer, I believe is how you pronounce her name. She is a women's rugby player for the United States, and, you know, she showed us the behind the scenes of the Olympics. She was posting absolutely hilarious videos, you know, during the lunch lines for all of the, athletes, or she would be posting, oh, you know, I bet so and so likes so and so and trying to set people up in the Olympic Village behind the scenes. And she was just sharing unhinged content, day to day life, nothing high quality, literally just phone out capturing, you know, a sandwich, someone sneezing, you know, injuries on and off the field, just random content that connected so so much with the viewers on social media, whether it was Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. And many people on a variety of platforms are saying, hey. I wasn't gonna watch the Olympics this year, but this girl has cracked me up so much. Now I need to know if she wins. And so the Olympics garnered a massive additional viewer or following her, you know, a viewer base just based off of Ileona's social media presence because she is funny and you can connect to her. You know, that's such a smart point that you bring up, bringing in unlikely audience members and unlikely fans through UGC. It reminds me just last week, two of my boys play travel hockey. Much of my family are Rangers fans, but I'm in, the tristate area. So you have Rangers fans, you have Devils fans, you have Flyers fans. Well, the New Jersey Devils reach out to the different, hockey travel teams, and they offer a a game for the travel team to come in and do a little shootout or play a little game during halftime. Here's why this is so smart and how it ties into u UGC. They first of all, they offer parents premium seats that are not discounted. So for a ranger fan to shell out premium nondiscounted seats or flyer fans, it would never happen. Be but because it's our kids, people are like, yeah. I'll pony that up. You know? It's a opportunity they're creating a fan experience that you cannot say no to even from a rival team. Right? So we're we're buying premium seats. We're going there. And then when our kids hit the ice, we're all taking out our phones, and we're recording our kids, and then we're putting them on our sites. Most of the time, a ranger fan is never gonna put, you know, devil content on their feed. But now they're getting ranger fans, devil's fans, and fire flyers fans all, you know, promoting the devil, showcasing this event. It is it is super smart. And you can, build a lot of those different, you know, contests or fun opportunities around UGC. You know, going back to GoPro, they have the GoPro Awards where they award the best content. So those are, you know, fun things you could really play with. Yeah. And, you know, that actually reminds me. I was gonna talk about something totally different, but something came to mind recently, from the NFR, the country the big, like, rodeo country fest sort of thing. I don't even know how to describe it. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. But, basically, they invite so many influencers, and they've changed it from just a rodeo or a horse riding competition into a almost an influencer event of sorts. You know, it's about the fashion. It's about the food. People are posting for weeks leading up to this event talking about, hey. This is what I'm gonna wear. Here's what I ordered for this event. Here is the, segments of this event I'm gonna go see. Here's my husband. He's riding at this time. Check him out, you know, on this and that station. Here's the hotel we're staying in. And watching these influencers be able to not only promote the event, but the hotels with the event and the specific, sponsors for each event is absolutely insane. And not only do they do it the day of, because I think a lot of brands think in terms of, okay. Well, we're gonna promote this day, and that's it. No. They're promoting it for months and months leading up to this event, and they're building that hype. And because you have that one on one connection with these influencers, you know, that is all the more people that are going to book those days at the hotels in order to attend, all of those people who are going to tune in to the various stations that are hosting this. And to me, it's been an absolutely wild thing to watch too because they've started to incorporate celebrities. So some of the opening night, events feature celebrities who have worked their way into rodeo culture. I think Bella Hadid. Think of some of the actors from Yellowstone. They've started to incorporate so many different dynamics and so many different industries into their promotional materials. Verticals that you don't think would align necessarily with their vision, they've worked it in to just gain an even bigger and bigger audience, throughout the past couple of years. That is so smart. And and you mentioned celebrities and, you know, those are, like, a list celebrities. Every company has their own celebrities. Right? You have your experts. Think of your experts as your celebrities. And those engagement numbers are amazing to see. You know, the data and the numbers don't lie. To throw some stats at you, I had a friend recently who created a name image likeness agency. You know, college athletes are now able to make money off of their name and other image. And he actually took twenty four college athletes and partnered with Atlantic Records. He had the college athletes, create UGC using the music at Atlantic, and a mere twenty four students created over one point one million impressions for at land for, Atlantic Records. So it's it's really amazing what you can do, and the data is there to prove it. So we've talked a lot about b two c and entertainment companies and what they have done to champion UGC. Alice, you work with a lot of companies in b two b. How have you seen them champion this? This? So one of my favorite success stories recently involves Sensus Technologies. They're an AI driven surgical instrument tracking system or platform. And right now, they're working on some exciting updates to their platform that they're gonna be rolling out for their clients sometime in January. And they're bringing in industry experts to do a first look review. So this is really cool because these experts are going to record themselves, screen share themselves going through this platform, walking through it for the first time, and offering their honest and unfiltered feedback, highlighting the pros and the cons of the features. So I know a lot of times with traditional media, what we do is we take the best parts of every single service or product, and we only feature those in a flashy high resolution commercial. This is gonna be different. It's gonna be essentially a form of user generated content coming from people with deep expertise in the field. And so it's gonna be a transparent approach that's gonna help build credibility, but, also, it's gonna help Sensus fine tune their platform in real time based on these insights. And it's just a great example of how UGC, whether from clients or experts, can really drive product improvement and brand trust in the b to b space. Yeah. Tapping into your experts is so powerful. You know, it actually makes me think of, when people go to the doctor, insurance companies started just letting you go to a specialist instead of going to your general practitioner, and then they send you to specialists because they know they realize that people want a specialist. They wanna hear from the best of the best within that industry. So spotlighting your experts is so strategic. It's so powerful. One of our clients, Verizon, has done this really well with their new series that they rolled out this year called US We Answer. And they take their internal experts, put them on the mic talking about their initiatives or what's going on in health care. The audience has really connected to that. And then off of, you know, the expert show that they have running, they also have a podcast called Health Care On Air with Verizon, and it is a general health care podcast that where they highlight movers and shakers in the industry. You know, and it all connects back to their initiatives. But, you know, they're not getting on the mic and they're just talking about themselves. Right? They're spotlighting other people. They're building partnerships. They're building out their community. Every time they have a guest on their channel, they grab their audience. And, you know, a lot of times, they're going to these health care shows in the year like, you know, health. And so what they do is they find out the partners or, some key speakers who are gonna be at the event. They'll invite them as guests onto their podcast to, number one, just have an industry conversation, but then also hype up the event that they're both gonna be at. So they're promoting the event. They're saying, hey. Stop by our booth. Oh, you're also gonna be there. What are you excited about? You're getting momentum. A lot of times these shows will often see that and promote it on their feed. So then now you're getting another person that is building engagement and audience with that piece of content. They'll go to a show. When they go to the show, you know, back in the day, used to be like, oh, here's my business card. I'll call you on Monday while it's two thousand twenty five. And now you can say, I have a podcast. I love what you do. I love to spotlight you on my channel. Email me. Let's set this up. And, you know, you're setting up a great conversation for your audience, informing them, and then creating these amazing organic relationships while you do it. So there's so many different strategies and verticals that really can pop off with just one piece of content. Definitely. And Verizon has been so successful at hosting other brands and other thought leaders in the industry. And the next example I was gonna bring up, Usto, they actually recently recorded with Verizon, and they were so, so excited, about that partnership. I they both walked away and seemed very happy with the recording, so I can't wait to listen to it. But Oosto, they're a company that specializes in real time facial recognition software. So while they don't do exactly what Verizon does and a lot of people would discredit that as, oh, okay. They have no synergy. Why would you do a podcast? They were able to hop on a call, work it out together, figure out that they had some similar verticals in the health care space, and they recorded an absolutely fire episode. I looked at the outline. It was so informative. I think that a lot of people in the health care industry will benefit from listening from it. So I think one important thing that a lot of companies do that we I would love to see more of is looking outside of partners or podcast guests that make sense. You know, it's the or look like they instantaneously have synergy and go beyond and go, no. This person has potential. Let's go and delve into that. And that's something Verizon is so, so good at. But with Oosto, they're they have been doing a phenomenal job as well. They just started their podcast, and they noticed that there was a lot of worry around their technology and about misuse in terms of facial recognition and AI. People are concerned about surveillance, data misuse, bias in algorithms, or even how their personal data is being handled in general. So for Oosto, overcoming these concerns was one of the keys to selling their platform, and they knew they needed to address these issues openly. So they started their podcast, Innovation Obsessed, to have those honest conversations, and they've used it to talk about the ethical side of facial recognition, explain how their tech works, and reassure people about privacy. So their goal is to improve security, not invade privacy, and by engaging directly with their audience, they built trust and credibility. And what I think is really cool is how they've been doing that. They've been using feedback from their audience as well as feedback garnered through social media and on the web and, I mean, even Reddit to answer questions and clear up misconceptions. And it's just a perfect example of user generated content where listeners are gonna feel heard and become part of the conversation, and it's gonna help shape the future of the platform. Absolutely. Podcast, great way to get out messaging, initiatives, huge partnership drivers. Creativity and authenticity drive engagement, that is universal. So as your companies are trying to implement this, start small, find formulas or formats that speak to you, give it to your team, but then let them fly. Let them have fun. Let them create content that speaks to them. Because I think when you do that, you're gonna find that they're gonna create content that speaks to a wide audience and resonates on a really deep level.
